Bozena and Sveta (Neuripra) (14 page)

Chapter 16

Božena
:

There's no pinpointing why I open my eyes, but I'm tense, waiting for...

Did I hear something?

Frowning so hard it makes my head ache, holding my breath, I listen intently. Listening for a squeak, the rusted swivel of a handle, the tentative step of an intruder in unfamiliar territory... something.
Anything
.

The quiet is so oppressive it's thick, stalking my heartbeat as if to halt it.

My living is shrieking loudly into the cosmic dearth of this silence. Sound doesn't travel in a vacuum, I remember that.

The mere fact that I cannot discern a damn thing is freaking me out. There's such a huge absence of noise I can hear my own elbow creak when I cautiously inch up in tiny increments to survey the room.

The world is never, ever, this silent.

Not ever.

Terror starts picking at the seams of my mind, throwing hateful words like rapture and holocaust at me.

Isolated, alone.. abandoned?

Okay wait, calm down. Maybe you're still sleeping. Close your eyes and open them again.

Squeezing my lids shut, I reopen to the room still saturated in darkness. It's the same; black, and insanely silent.

Needing movement and life affirming noise, I sit up fast, shoving off the covers, feeling my way to the bedside table.

Oh right!

Fuck! I completely forgot.

Go Zena! Talk about catching the Bullet Train to Mars. The red planet and all.

Laughing to myself, I finally locate the god damn switch on the lamp, and click it on.

The dimmest glow breaks the claustrophobic doom I was sinking into, and I sit back with utter relief.

Twisting, I stare at the vast empty bed.

That's what woke me. He must have snuck out and subconsciously I heard him.

It takes a moment for the gleeful smugness of being in his bedroom to sink in.

He's worse then me. With him you have to work to gain entrance. It's like breaking into an underground cult. You have to prove yourself over and over and over again, consistently, and until the don is satisfied, or the master, or the priest, or high lord, or whatever the fuck, until he says you're in, well until then you're not in.

But haha, once you're
in
you go straight to the inner sanctum of darkness to experience the consecrated for yourself.

Holy fuckness!

Sveta, my god, what a mind fuck.

He's subliminal.

Still in a stage of acceptance, denial, and disbelief, I swivel my hungry gaze back over the room where I am currently hidden.

I'm comfortably resting on a custom made futon with Japanese trimmings. I know it's custom made because it's the biggest bed I've ever seen. Mats which look handwoven splatter the ebony floorboards. A lingering scent of sandalwood and aspen permeates throughout.

Everything is edge to edge perfection. There are no door handles, just hidden grooves artfully crafted into the flat panels that make up the wardrobe. Hiding doors, and windows, and cupboards, and god knows what else. A basement? A torture chamber? A dungeon?

It gives a flawless face to the interior that is unmarred and unbroken. It's so neat I'm afraid to sweat in here, for fear of ruining the immaculate veneer of his safe space.

Daring to shatter the silence, I indulge in a delighted laugh, thrilled to have made it this far.

Impulsively I snatch up his pillow and smother my face with it, flopping back and appreciating crisp cool linen imbedded with Sveta's masculine imprint.

It's faint, but it's there. And there's enough of him left on this pillow to successfully flog my fears back into hiding.

So where is the neuri underling?

Underling my fucking ass. Do his brothers know how powerful he is? Or is power just so natural to them that it's seen as insignificant?

Replacing his pillow and nervously smoothing it flat, I return surveillance to the room that I hardly had time to appreciate earlier. It's a total surprise. The linens look like that eco-friendly bamboo thread. It's off white and unbelievably soft. The mats on the floor are undyed pure wool, thick and amply woven.

The only decoration is a holograph foil painting of a tranquil pool surrounded with lush foliage. It takes up a third of the far wall. The ceiling meets the walls at perfect right angles and the entire room is painted in matte nougat, seamlessly joining wall to ceiling. The rest is decorated in almost-black wood, offset with natural threads.

I did not see any of this hidden side of Sveta coming.

And I like it.

I like it a
lot
.

Twisting my long hair into a knot, I stand, creeping to where I think the door is. Hooking a finger in the groove, I pull on it.

Soundlessly the door slides open, almost giving me a fucking heart attack. Jumping back with my heart doing the popcorn dance, my hands are clenched tight over my chest while I wait for the door to chill out.

I expected it to open like a normal door!

Looking up, I notice the railings. So every door slides open and hangs from the ceiling?

Jeez dude, this house needs to come with a visitor's manual.

With my pulse pumping palpitations, I look inside the closet. It's walk in. Lights behind bamboo wood trim gradually beam into life, igniting like enchanted lanterns in an alternate dimension.

It illuminates a looped cream carpet set as a runway between clothes hung neatly on wooden hangers; it's a wardrobe brimming with leather to linen, and everything in between.

I'm gobsmacked.

Why does he dress like a ruffian when he wears this at home?

I'm tempted to walk in and touch everything, except I'm afraid he has alarms, or cameras set up to spy on a snoop.

Closing the door, I decide to try the big double doors. This time I hit the jackpot as the passageway is presented in the dramatic flourish of doors that finish opening without assistance.

They're so silent it feels like a dream.

Maybe it is a dream?

Shit like this doesn't happen in the real world. Dreams can be devoid of sound, and stuff can work strangely.

His home is like a living organism that anticipates your next move. Lights coming on and off, doors opening and closing, all because you looked their way. They must go beserk when he's in a bad mood.

Maybe they're heat sensitive? Or...? Fuck, I don't know!

It's enough to make someone on the paranoid edge think they're either being watched and everything is remotely operated by the all seeing eye, or they're about to enter into a wrestling match with a poltergeist.

Or his domovoi is really well trained. Most people don't believe in the domovoi these days, but I think the house spirits exist. They do chores, and protect the house and the people who live in it. But then again, you do get bad ones. Sveta's domovoi must adore him to switch lights on and off, keeping everything user friendly and helpful.

Dismissing the thoughts which scrunch my calm into knots, I tiptoe into the passage and walk to the right. Predictably tiny lights set in the wall at floor level flick on when I'm three feet away from them, lighting my way.

He's either really energy conscious, or he gets so wasted on a regular basis he leaves everything on and got sick of the electric bill.

Sveta, I thought I knew you. Who the fuck are you?

Traversing the long passage made of plain stone tiles and the same marzipan suede walls, I keep walking until I detect the alluring decoction of coffee brewing.

There is no scent more seductive than morning coffee.

With my pulse tripping with nerves, I finally breach through an opening and am instantly soldered to the spot by the sight waiting in ambush.

Afraid to breathe, move, or make a sound, I am frozen, enraptured.

This has to be a dream.

Before me is a living room which is so spacious and vast it's a hall. But it's shallow, with approximately sixteen feet between me and an open wall. Floor to ceiling doors are folded up like a tight fan on either side of the opening. And the opening
is
the entire wall before me.

There, on a perfect oval of turf, is a man so fluid he moves like an eel through water.

Which is apt, because beyond him is a rock pool lit with waning moonlight, releasing tranquility in a slow trickle from a sedate waterfall. It forms a barrier of privacy, secluding him in his own private outdoor sanctuary.

But it's not the beauty surrounding him that gives me pause, it's
him
.

Balancing on one arm, his body is straight as a torpedo and just as rigid, his other arm held outstretched in perfect alignment with his shoulders to keep his balance.

Gracefully, like the crook of a swan's neck, he maneuvers after his locking hold of position, into lifting a leg straight out like his arm. Now he's simply slanting, holding his weight on two toes and a hand.

Silent as the night, he stretches his arm in an arc to reach over his head, then curls the arm in and melts into the next move. It looks like a push-up until he straightens his arms and lowers his hips, turning his spine into a spectacular crescent.

Relaxing, he droops his head onto his shoulders, giving me a seraphic view of his neck, its strength, every vein on his body bursting to be free of his skin. His muscles are so deeply etched he looks ready to pop.

I've seen well built men in my time, but none come this close to a god, or an angel. Every single muscle is defined, bulging, parading for inspection and draped in skin so taut and pale it's supernatural.

It weakens my legs and I sink as gradually as I can to puddle on the floor. I forget. He
is
supernatural.

Clad in white baggy drawstring trousers, the kind you imagine on a guru or sensei, I stare as he curls into himself, finally relaxing his arms while he's folded over his legs, tucking his face into his knees.

In a perfect patch of paradise he stays immobile for an eternity while the predawn breath strokes his skin and kisses each vertebrae down his spine.

Only when the crisp caress of her presence has worshipped him, does he unfurl, slinky, serene, turning his face so he stares directly at me with sprinkles of apricot
phosphorescence
leaking from his eyes.

They are the only light source other than the secretive moon, and it snaps my soul into fragments.

Nothing could prepare me for the moment I stare at a being so precious my spirit and soul fight to climb out of my skin, rushing to embrace that perfection with adoration.

I have no strength to move as I meet his iridescent eyes glowing their luminosity at me with what I now know is lust and love.

I am so unworthy. He is so close to perfect it hurts to stare at him. The woman in me wants to crawl over the cold stone tiles, to touch, appreciate, to simply soak in his presence. It's when you catch a neuri in an unguarded moment that you realize just how supreme they are to the rest of us.

After what I just witnessed I can understand how men have built shrines and modeled religions after the gods of men.

He is a god among men.

Standing in what can only be described as a svelte drape of elegance, he comes closer, walking toward me with that muscular perfection twitching and flowing in perfect symmetry.

His body is a planet that tempts the explorer to traverse the vales, ridges, mountains and storms. The closer it gets the more I can feel the magnetic charisma and attraction mounting its static between us.

I'm aching to slide my palms over the hard hills of his chest, to tread fingers down the canyon between the muscles to his stomach, to track the ravines between them with my tongue and to adore the strength of those curved biceps, the tight triceps, the lats that line him like handles to hold to on the ride of a lifetime.

What a dream... a holograph.

Except I know it's not. I know he's living and breathing and almost close enough to hold. And I know I am humbled by his perfection. He has ruined me for every other man on this earth. None are worthy to touch his shadow.

Sveta causes scar tissue to build up in my irises just from looking, and my fuck what he can do with his body would put anyone but him into traction for months.

Last night will stay with me forever, no matter how many times I reincarnate. I never knew a man so strong could be so tender and delicate. Or deliver so many hours of endless ecstasy.

He drops silently to his haunches, reaching out warm hands to defrost my cold body, and it's the touch of a sun in an ice-age.

His laugh revokes my ability to stand without support as it sucks the strength from my blood and replaces it with desire so vivid it attacks with the ferocity of a solar flare.

Hot lips brush mine while citrus stained breath washes up to my olfactory nerve. “Good morning, angel.”